Pages

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Return of the Dragon

There is a perception, especially in the West, that ever since
China overtook Japan as the world’s second largest economy that China’s status
as a superpower is something new. For a while, in the last 30 years,
China's economy has been growing at a fast pace, averaging a 10% growth per
year. In the last five years especially, the media has compared
China more favourably against the West along several economic markers, bringing
it to our attention as though it were an anachronism in our decidedly fixed
vision of the country as, “lagging behind the West” or “curtailed by its
communism policies”. One notes that China’s performance has only been
more noticeable following the recent global economic crisis and its detrimental
impact on both the EU and the US. When the head of the Eurozone bailout
fundflew
to Beijing early this year to ask the Chinese
to contribute from their massive foreign reserve holdings, this movewas seen by someas
an indication of China's emergence as the world's top economic power.

Yet reviewing China's history beyond the 21stCentury, China’s place as a top
economy and its influential presence on the world’s stage is not something new. Hence the title of this article, Return of the Dragon, not Rise of the Dragon.

One must examine the reason why the Dragon's rise might be
seen as a new phenomenon together with the fears that go hand in hand with such belief. Arguably following the Cold War period, the extensive
English literature pervading our media where China was concerned has focused on the Cultural Revolution, stringent communist policies, the one-child policy, human rights records and censuring.
That this coverage serves ethical and political (especially during the Cold War) values is one thing but its
narrow focus fails to highlight the complete Chinese essence and partly
obscures the vast history that has shaped China. Again, this narrowly focused coverage has, by its nature, bordered on propaganda, in the sense that it has fostered a "rising fear about how China could use its power".

Re-Assessing China's History

China’s history is extensive with records dating back to 1600BC.
The assertion that events taking place in China during any particular
decade either in the 20thor
21stcentury could
serve as a definite marker for the country’s productive capacity and its
standard behaviour in the international sphere, would be akin to attributing
that Britain and Holland are defined by their colonial past, Germany by its Nazi Holocaust and
Spain by its Inquisition.

China is clearly more than its Cultural Revolution, the subject of
most films and historical books, at least in the West. In this extensively documented and troubling period, China saw the unprecedented burning of books by the Red Guards,
together with the replacement of all practices that were deemed ‘old’, and
therefore 'bourgeois', in favour of ‘new’ or 'working class' practices, often at
great costs to culture, peace and social structure. Today, given China's
consumer record, one would argue that 'bourgeois' practices have been embraced
anew wherever affordable. So much for the Cultural Revolution.

Even if one were to reflect on the extent of communist influence
in China, Mao’s policies do not define China more than would its 2600 years of
Confucianism. Albeit there was a time, when the replacement of the 'old' with
the 'new' did conflict with Confucianism and had a resounding effect on the
country’s society, with children being encouraged to break away from filial
duty by turning in their 'dissident' parents. Today however, it would be
erroneous to believe that Confucianism is dead in China’s society. In fact Confucianism has experienced a strong revival in China in the last 20 years.

The Ming Dynasty - The Last Peaceful Period when China Ruled Itself

In evidence, one needs a broader picture of China. One needs to look back, before the unstable decade of
the Cultural Revolution, long before Mao’s time, even prior to the colonial
conflicts which led to the Boxer Rebellion together with the Opium Wars and
China’s forced dispossession of Hong Kong. Again, we should look prior to
the 19thcentury, long
before the reigning Qing Dynasty during which China was ruled by Manchu tribes
for several hundred years, and when even the elegant thousands of years oldHan-fudress code, pride of the dominant Han culture,
and precursor of Japan’s ownHan-fubasedkimono, was forcefully replaced
by the plainqipao.

We are almost there…

...back to a time, when Chinese men were still permitted to wear
their long hair in buns without being forced by the Manchus to shave their head and grow a
braid; a time where they were masters of their own country: the Ming Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty spans almost 300 years. A key period in Chinese
history and one of the least written about in English language literature, it
is also the setting forThe
Ming Storytellers, an English language character-driven historical novel
whose plot weaves intrigue between Ming emperors, fleet navigators,
shamans, eunuchs and concubines.The
Ming Storytellersbrings to
the fore several key events in the Early Ming Dynasty, including the
construction of the Beijing Imperial palace.

Chronologically speaking, the Ming Dynasty sits between China’s 90-year rule by Mongol tribes and its near 300-year rule by invading Manchus (who
have since blended into the Han Chinese population).

The Ming Dynasty seems
like some political miracle in comparison to these adjacent periods.
During this dynasty, the Chinese Han majority governed itself. This is in
sharp contrast to its later political situation following its encounter with
the Manchus, later with Western powers (Germany, Britain and France) and
finally, with Japan in WWII. Evidently, China has had its share of foreign
invasions and foreign political pressure. It raises a question as to whether it
deserves the potential "red" invader reputation that some fearmongers
have attributed to it in these modern times...Something to ponder.

China's Foreign Policy During the Ming Dynasty

While being itself a country familiar with external aggressors,
one must acknowledge China’s then resource hungry Ming policies which saw it invade
Annam (today’s Vietnam) during the 15thcentury and deforest a great part of
the Annamese land to service its domestic architecture. Parallels might perhaps be seen with China's current policies towards Xinjiang and Tibet.

Then again, one must also acknowledge the extensive Ming tribute
system. In this mostly peaceful system, diplomacy and trade with China were
dependent on a country's willingness to send gifts to the Ming emperor. To
reward its 'subjects', China reciprocated in gifts and offered protection from
pirates. China's feared Ming fleet made it a respected superpower. In the Ming
Dynasty, China successfully engaged in a tribute system with what is now Korea,
Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Southern India, Tanzania, Sri
Lanka, Malaysia and Borneo. Overall, however, China's foreign policy was geared towards diplomacy and 'face', not profit. The
cost of the tribute system which included massive expenditure on the Ming
fleet, was so significant, that even China’s government ministers would rile against it,
leading the country to eventually close itself to better deal with its growing
inflation.

Ming China - an Economic Giant Catering for a Global Market

Nevertheless, China during the Ming Dynasty was an economic power, producing mass quantities of silk, porcelain, craftwork and food products.
During Admiral Zheng He’s time, the Ming treasure fleet, travelling as
far as Zanzibar and Dhofar, carried in its holds thousands of porcelain pieces
destined for Persia, Constantinople, Hormuz and other parts of the Arab world.
Topkapi Palace museum exhibits 10700 pieces of porcelain ranging from the Song,
Yuan (Mongol), Ming and Qing dynasties. In the Ming Dynasty, porcelain destined
for the Islamic world was even designed by the Chinese with their Muslim
patrons in mind. The pieceslimited figurative imagery, as prescribed by religious
guidelines. China’s mass manufacturing, its industrious spirit and its capacity to cater for its world
market and trade extensively with the rest of the world is clearly not exclusively a post-Mao neo-liberal phenomenon.

Civil Liberties During the Ming Dynasty

Interestingly, if we extend our scope to domestic policy, China’s reputedly stringent political control is not a device born of communism. To support this claim, one only
has to dwell into the beginnings of the Ming Dynasty at a time when Emperor Zhu
Di once officialised a secret police known as the Eastern Depot. This
institution was named after the Donganmen (the Eastern city gate of Beijing) where it was situated. The Eastern Depot was a
ruthless secret police that saw eunuch guards hire spies to weed out dissidents
and potential traitors while systematically torturing political suspects.

The Eastern Depot had its own torture prison called the Zhenfusi
and was feared for its cruel torturing techniques. It lasted for as long as the
Ming Dynasty. The Eastern Depot is a central theme in the character-basedThe Ming Storytellers. While
the novel covers a larger scope than the political,The Ming Storytellersgives a fascinating insight into the
paranoia of the early Ming emperors and their often corrupt secret police,
driven to service political interests at the cost of civil liberties and
justice. The Zhenfusi is not unlike Guantanamo, nor is Guantanamo
unlike many other torturing locations in the world.

The Threat of the Dragon

It appears that China is today more than just regaining its place
as a world superpower. Just as we have been noticing China more and more,
China, too, is regaining an interest in its past. Unlike the days of the
Cultural Revolution where the past was seen as decadent and not a subject to
learn from, China has lately seen a rising wave of interest for history
books and films.

Evidently, China's surge
in interest for its history serves the country's growing nationalistic pride.
It is this rising nationalism that is seen by some Westerners as a threat,
especially by those who fear that China, given its political and economical power, could assert itself more aggressively
in the future just as it has been seen to assert itself in Tibet. In this respect, one must remember that there is always an irrationality in fear that needs to be closely
examined. That nationalism in China should arouse fear while the singing of
La Marseillaise by the French leads to goosebumps, invites curiosity. After all, to use it as an example, France once invaded parts of America, Africa and Asia. Its government practicedscorched
earth policy in Algeria. France's human rights record, notably, during the
aptly named Reign of Terror following the French Revolution, and, over several
centuries as a prominent slave trader, could equally lead to suspicion or sense of threat.

Why does it not?The answer to this question might well be found in Nicolas Barre's argument published in France's Le Figaro, 21 April 2008 during the pre- China Olympics period which saw a call to boycotting of China in response to its treatment of Tibet:

"No matter how sincere this pro-tibetan mobilisation is, we can observe that it is sometimes accompanied by an anti-Chinese dimension which is not unlike the anti-Japanese animosity of the 70s and 80s. Under the white flag of great principles and human rights discourses, there often hides, here and there, a certain resentment towards a country, which similarly to Japan 20 to 30 years ago, perturbs the world's equilibrium, notably in economic terms: this mobilisation is often stronger when it is fueled by the fear of the 'made in China'. Cloaked in the noble argument of our so called 'universal values' there often exists the stench of racism which lies at the antipodes of those principles that we pretend to incarnate." - author's translation A New Beginning

Only
time will tell if the Dragon that is China, cannot be trusted and if this Western fear is at all justified. Indeed, perhaps this fear is the same type of fear as the one which haunted early Ming
emperors when they established their secret police. For now however,
having taken a brief glance at its broad history, together with the global role
it has played in past centuries, one should not feel surprised to watch this
Dragon rise.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Laura Rahme's Blog

About the author

Laura Rahme is an Australian-French author based in Sydney. Of Lebanese, French and Vietnamese heritage, Laura has a passion for history, art and the human sciences. She holds degrees in Engineering and Psychology. Laura has published three historical novels. THE MING STORYTELLERS (2012) is a historical epic set in China's Early Ming Dynasty. THE MASCHERARI (2014) is a historical mystery with supernatural themes set in late medieval Venice. Her third novel, JULIEN'S TERROR (2017) is a psychological mystery/thriller set in revolutionary France.